The production of biscuits and other similar products is often performed in a continuous manner on a moving production line. These products are usually processed in sheets or rows with adjacent biscuits contiguous or spaced apart. The product is normally packaged in individual portions by weight or other measure.
When produced in sheet form, it is common practice to break the sheet of product into individual units and to align the individual biscuits into rows. If the product is produced as individual biscuits, it is normally produced in rows, which may also require alignment.
It is common practice to further process the product in such a way as to stand the biscuits vertically on their edges, through the use of devices known commonly as stackers. Thus, at some stage in the production process, a multiplicity of continuously advancing rows of biscuits or thin products, standing side by side on edge, or stacked face to face are presented to be measured out into modules generally according to weight or length and further processed and packaged.
Traditionally the measuring out of modules and placement of the modules in equipment for further processing and/or packaging has been accomplished manually. Owing to ever increasing rates of production and the increased labor cost, the performance of these tasks manually is becoming too expensive and non competitive.